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A Discovery-Oriented Process Study Of Enactment In Family Therapy: Development Of The Family Therapy Enactment Rating Scale, Elizabeth Ong-Mythuan Fong

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

With the effectiveness of psychotherapy now well-supported in both the individual and family literatures (Garfield & Bergin, 1994), we are entering an era where questions of how and why therapy works are of interest. More specifically, there has been support and encouragement by some researchers (Rice & Greenberg, 1984; Mahrer, 1988) for the use of discovery-oriented methodologies to explore clinical phenomena that have yet to be empirically validated. The following is a discovery-oriented study of enactment, a structural family therapy intervention. The theoretical goals of enactments, their relevance to clinical practice, as well as how they are actually implemented in …

African-American Males' Perception Of Law Enforcement: A Psychophysiological Perspective, Adolph Brown Iii

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study compared the psychophysiological reactivity of African American and European American males to authority. Nineteen African American males and 23 European American males were randomly assigned to either be interrogated by a police officer, or see a police officer interrogate that experimenter or view a videotape of police activity. Participants' physiological reactivity, acceptance of authority, fear of negative evaluation or social anxiety, and apprehension and anxiety in stressful situations as well as EMG, SCR, heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure were measured. African American males were hypothesized to show greater physiological response than European American males and participants who …

A Repertory Grid Assessment Of Traitedness And Its Relation To The Validity Of The Neo Pi-R Conscientiousness Scale, Susan Nancy Heidal-Schiltz

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Since Allport (1937) first introduced the idea that traits may vary in their relevance for particular individuals, several investigators have explored ways to operationalize the construct of traitedness in order to improve the criterion-related validity of a trait-based approach to personality assessment. Specifically, these investigators have examined the utility of traitedness indicators as moderators of trait-criterion correlations, seeking to separate those individuals who are predictable on a given trait dimension from those who are not. This study attempted to determine whether the criterion-related validity of the Conscientiousness scale from the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992) …

The Relationship Of Autonomy Sociotropy And Depression To The Recall Of Autobiographical Memories, Jennifer Sue Cheavens

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Past research in the area of dysphoria and depression has examined two personality constructs known as autonomy and sociotropy. These personality constructs have been studied as predispositions to dysphoria and depression. The current study focused on the ability of Autonomy and Sociotropy, measured by the Personal Style Inventory (PSI), to predict both participants' and raters' autonomous and sociotropic ratings of autobiographical life events. The study also examined the differences in classifications of events as either sociotropic or autonomous when the classifications were made by both participants and objective raters. Participants were 72 female and 43 male undergraduate students enrolled in …

Mmpi And Rorschach Findings Of Individuals Approved For Gender Reassignment Surgery, Gregory Ralph Caron

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Both clinical experience and empirical data from psychological tests present a picture of extreme clinical variation among those individuals who request gender reassignment surgery. Results of past empirical studies utilizing the MMPI and the Rorschach Test have tended to be equivocal regarding the level and nature of psychopathology associated with samples of gender dysphorics. These past studies are considered limited particularly in terms of methodological problems related to statistical power. This present study examined the nature and degree of psychopathology in a sample of candidates approved for gender reassignment surgery as reflected on their MMPI-2 clinical scale values and scores …

Hardiness And Sensation Seeking As Potential Moderating Variables In The Stress-Illness Relationship, William N. Campbell Jr.

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

One hundred and fifteen undergraduate psychology students participated in a study designed primarily to investigate the personality styles characterized by "hardiness" and "sensation seeking" as potential moderators in the stress illness relationship. Subjects completed inventories measuring life-event stress, perceived stress, and illness experienced during the previous year, as well as questionnaires measuring hardiness, sensation seeking, and maladjustment. Correlation analysis revealed significant positive relationships between life-event stress and illness and perceived stress and illness as well as a significant negative relationship between hardiness and maladjustment.

Multiple regression analyses showed that life-event stress, perceived stress, and the two measures used together significantly …

Development Of A K-Correction Factor For The Mmpi-A, Jody Jacobson Alperin

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

In 1992, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - Adolescent (MMPI-A) was developed to meet the unique experiences and needs of adolescents. Despite evidence that adolescents often demonstrate response biases in taking the MMPI-A, currently there is no method to systematically "correct" for the effect of test-taking attitude on profile configuration with this age group. The K-correction factor has been widely used to correct for defensiveness or underreporting of symptomatology on the MMPI among adult respondents, although results of cross-validation research on the effectiveness of the K-correction factor have been inconclusive. The present study derived age-appropriate K-weights to determine the degree …

Neuropsychological Functioning Among Violent And Nonviolent Sex Offenders, Pamela Knox-Jones

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Violent sex offenders, nonviolent sex offenders, violent non-sex offenders, and nonviolent non-sex offenders were compared on neuropsychological testing and on personality testing. A neuropsychological test battery and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - 2 (MMPI-2) were administered to 93 and 50 male felons respectively. Subjects were drawn from a data base provided by the state Department of Corrections. Potential indicators of neuropsychological impairment were controlled during the selection process. Analyses of Variance (alpha =.05) found that violent sex offenders scored significantly lower than the other three groups on two measures that are sensitive to left hemisphere impairment and one that …

The Relationship Between Negative Affectivity And Perceptions Of Performance And The Workplace, Johanna M. Merritt

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The relationship between negative affectivity and work-related variables was examined. Participants in the study included 75 faculty administrators and 234 undergraduate students who currently held jobs. Negative affectivity was negatively related to overall job satisfaction. Mixed results were found for the relationship between negative affectivity and specific facets of job satisfaction. The hypothesis that negative affectivity would relate negatively to three evaluation measures was only partially supported in both the student and faculty samples. The hypotheses that negative affectivity would negatively relate to organizational commitment, to perceptions of organizational support, and to procedural justice were strongly confirmed. Regression results offer …

Difference Between Maternal Characteristics And Home Environments Of Day Care And Non-Day Care Families, Eva Granahan Clarke

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine differences between maternal characteristics and the home environments of families who planned to use day care and those who did not. The relationships between maternal personality characteristics and the other variables under investigation were also examined. The subjects completed four questionnaires which assessed attitudes towards working mothers, maternal separation anxiety, parenting stress, and general personality characteristics. The home environment was assessed by the Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment. The subjects in the study were 16 mothers who planned to remain home and not place their children in day …

Interpreting The Personal Orientation Inventory Through The Five-Factor Model, Diane Donald Anderson

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study was designed to determine how the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI; Shostrom, 1974) relates to the Five-Factor Model of Personality. Four self-report personality instruments were employed; the Personal Orientation Inventory, the Comrey Personality Scales (CPS; Comrey, 1970), the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI; Costa & NcCrae, 1988), and the Five-Factor Nodel Adjective Factors (AF,", Costa & NcCrae, 1985b). Data were collected from 128 psychology students aged 18 to 30 years. Scores for the Five Factors were obtained by factor analysis combining responses from the CPS, the NEO-FFI, and the AF. Pearson product-moment intercorrelations were then computed for the Five Factors …

Influence Of Touch And Preferences For Control On Visual Behavior, Teresa Whitehurst Caudill

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The present study investigated the effects of touch, as mediated by the preference for control (PC) of the recipient, upon visual behavior as well as evaluative and affective responses. Subjects were female students at Old Dominion University, selected on the basis of their scores on the Expressed Control subscale of the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation (FIRO-B) Inventory (Schutz, 1958). Based upon their scores on the subscale, 29 females scoring high and 30 females scoring low were randomly assigned to either touch or no touch conditions. Subjects in the touch condition were touched on the arm by a male confederate after …

Effects Of Physical Attractiveness And Warmth On The Perception Of Deviant Behavior, Midge Wilson

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The impressions formed by male and female subjects of a female target were investigated as a function of her physical attractiveness, warmth, and behavior. Experimental sessions consisted of subjects viewing a videotape depicting one of the factorial conditions, and then responding to an impression questionnaire. Multivariate analysis revealed, as predicted, that subjects' trait ratings of the target were significantly more positive when she was attractive compared to unattractive, warm compared to cold, and behaved neutrally compared to deviantly. No effect on the subjects' degree of confidence in their ratings was observed. Two causal attribution measures were obtained: responses of subjects …